Ethan Hawke

For a time, I thought Ethan Hawke was the worst, most destructive stage actor in New York City. Shakespeare, Chekhov, Brecht—it seemed there was no canonized playwright he was unwilling to defile, no production safe from his histrionics, his loud, heavily gestural, and self-absorbed brand of performance. So it is with great delight and more […]

Glenda Jackson is brilliant. Throughout Three Tall Women, her craggy face—one Beckett would have loved—alternately radiates wisdom, confusion, knowing cynicism, and puckish amusement, all with a firmly-pursed upper lip. The primary difference, I think, between stage and film acting is the requirement for stage actors to use all of their body. Too frequently, this means a series […]

The only interesting thing about Ethan Hawke is that no actor so lousy has tried so aggressively to trade in his celebrity for artistic credibility. In Clive, a rewriting of Bertolt Brecht’s Baal, he plays a pretentious, narcissistic rocker with bleach-blond hair and a penchant for drinking and womanizing—quite the stretch. And yet he can’t […]

Ethan Hawke wants you to know that he’s a really serious actor. When he’s not busy mentally masturbating with his pal Richard Linklater, he’s performing Shakespeare at the Old Vic in London. Now, he’s dabbling in Chekhov, playing the title part in Ivanov at the Classic Stage Company. In it, he saws the air with […]